


gone but not my love

by heroic_pants



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Baby Mike, Canon-Compliant, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Female Bonding, Hate Crimes, M/M, Motherly Bonding, Oneshot, Period-Typical Racism, Racism, jessica and will would and did do literally anything for mike, minor character you say?? someone's missing mother you say??? don't @ me i live for the tropes, sometimes you listen to glass animals and get feelings about jessica hanlon ok, well movie canon because we learn nothing about the hanlons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:13:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22209976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heroic_pants/pseuds/heroic_pants
Summary: "Sharon makes an empathetic noise. “Aw, hon, I’m so sorry. Honestly, in your position, I’d feel the same way,” she says sadly. She sighs. “I know it’s not the same for you as it is for me, Jessica. But I understand – maybe it’s part of being afraid to have more…I don’t know what I’d do if – if someone hurt my kids.”Jessica nods slowly. “Yeah, I – there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for mine. I’d fight – I’d use every ounce of strength I had if I had to,” she says, and her voice shakes a little."***in 1979, Jessica Hanlon has a harrowing confrontation at work, and experiences Derry's cruelty and kindness in an afternoon, when a generous female music teacher gives her a lift home during a storm, and they bond over music and having young children.in 2018, Sharon Denbrough is looking through old papers in her Florida home, and reminisces about an old friend...
Relationships: Bill Denbrough/Mike Hanlon, Jessica Hanlon/Will Hanlon, Sharon Denbrough/Zack Denbrough
Comments: 5
Kudos: 25





	gone but not my love

**Author's Note:**

> This fic came about literally because I was listening to Glass Animals' Youth and thinking about the losers and then I started wondering about Jessica Hanlon, and something that was supposed to be like one or two scenes morphed into this, so anyone reading this incredibly niche fic I hope you like it! 
> 
> Listen to this at the end if you really want to have an enhanced experience: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZdsmLgCVdU
> 
> just a heads up, in case you didn't read the tags, for - racism and hate speech/crimes.

_1979_

The diner is packed with people today, probably because of the storm that’s threatening to blow down. This kind of weather always makes people a little antsy. Jessica has to make sure she’s on top of her game on days like these. Coffee mugs filled, no one waiting, doing regular circuits, making sure meals get out on time.

She watches the clock. Just twenty minutes till her shift is over.

Twenty minutes and then she can go home and hold him.

Today has been ok. Not brilliant, but the townspeople have been civil to her. A few have even attempted a smile, or a kind word. That’s as much as she hopes for.

“Off soon?” Darryl, the cook, asks, smiling.

“Yes, thank God. My feet are killing me,” she says in an undertone , smiling back.

He chuckles. “Don’t I know it too. Give your boy a kiss from me, then,”

She beams. “Will do.”

She’s so close to finishing she can feel it.

The diner doorbell dings, and her heart sinks when she sees who it is.

Some of the town put up with her presence. These are the kind of men who don’t. Darryl gives her a worried look, and she puts a smile on. Fifteen minutes. She can do this.

Of course they’re in her section, too.

Marie passes her. “I can take them if you want,” she says, under her breath.

She smiles gratefully. “Thank you, Marie.”

Marie nods understandingly.

Jessica goes around to other customers, straightens tables.

She hears at outburst nearby and knows exactly where it’s coming from.

“Well I don’t want no burger from here if it’s been prepared dirty!”

She doesn’t turn around.

“You’ve been eating our burgers since you were a boy Dale, I think you know we're up to health code,” comes Marie’s unimpressed, no-nonsense voice.

“That was before you hired _that_ to work here, Marie,” Dale parries nastily. His friends jeer in agreement.

She doesn’t turn around. Ten minutes. It’s only ten minutes.

“Hey, hey, I’m talking to you!” Dale calls loudly. He sounds belligerent, drunk, though it’s still daylight.

She walks away from his voice, trying not to shake.

“You fucking ape, you don’t walk away from me when I'm talking to you!” comes his voice behind her, angry.

He’s following her.

“Dale! We’ll not have people speak like that here!” Marie protests angrily. “Get away -"

“Shut the hell up, Marie. Whose side are you on?” comes the voice of one of his friends.

Jessica is almost at the counter. If she can just get back behind the counter –

“Hey, I said, don’t walk away from me – “

To her horror, a strong hand grabs her arm harshly, and drags her around. Dale is already an ugly man, and rage and alcohol don’t do his pudgy, bristled face any favors. She sees him begin to mouth the word before she hears it.

It’s not the first time she’s heard it and it likely won’t be the last. But this one is thrown out with such relish it hits like a physical slap.

“Let go of me,” she says steadily, trying to keep her voice so.

She is scared, though. He’s a big man. His friends are big.

His lip curls. “You should call me sir. Or master. Whatever you prefer.”

She breathes, refusing to look away from his cold blue eyes.

“Let go of me, Dale,” she repeats, trying to stay calm.

There’s the sound of a shotgun cocking. Dale looks at the cook's counter with actual fear.

She looks to the counter too. Darryl is pointing the gun they have for holdups at him.

“I think you and your friends best clear out of here,” Darryl says, coldly. “Take your worthless hands off Jess or you’ll be enjoying a new hole in your body.”

Dale glares at her with great venom. “You'll all get what’s coming to you,” he threatens, and lets her go. As he does, before she can quite run away, he spits in her face.

She turns and runs for the backroom behind the counter, hearing him laughing cruelly with his friends as they get up and leave.

Darryl reaches up with a tissue to wipe her face. “Jess…” he says, voice shaking. He doesn’t seem to know what to say. He just opens his arms and she cries into his chest.

“Oh honey, I’m so sorry.” Jessica hears Marie’s voice behind her, sounding devastated.

She breaks away from Darryl for Marie to hug her too.

Marie looks at Darryl. “Walk her to her car. All meals on hold until she’s safely away.”

Darryl nods. He looks at her, caringly. “Nothing is happening to you on our watch.”

Jessica drives home. The storm hasn’t hit yet, but it’s making the day grey and dark.

She listens to the soul station. It’s one of the only good things she has in this town, and she stumbled on it by mistake.

She sings along with Irma Thomas. “I wish someone would care. Don't you think someone should care?”

She used to love singing.

She gets back to their little house.

Mrs Camacho is sitting on the couch, reading a book with –

“Mama!” he squeals excitedly.

“Hi baby,” she coos, suddenly warmed inside and out.

“Has he been good?” she asks Mrs Camacho. Her wrinkled, tan face breaks into a wide, affectionate smile.

“As always, a delight,” she says, giving him a light tickle. He giggles, and the sound of it almost makes up for how awful the last hour or so was.

She finds her wallet to pay and hands the money to Mrs Camacho.

“Its too much!” she protests. Jessica shakes her head. “Please, I know I was late. I really appreciate you doing this,” she says, smiling.

Mrs Camacho sees her eyes. “Something happen at work?” she says, alertly.

Jessica shakes her head. She doesn’t want to make it a big deal. “Nothing. I’m fine.”

Mrs Camacho looks unconvinced. “Really?”

She blinks, tries to keep smiling. “Dale and his friends came in.”

Mrs Camacho sucks a breath in, scowling. “ _Puta.”_

Jessica nods. “You’re right there.”

Mrs Camacho looks at her kindly. “I’m always next door, Jessica. I’ll look after your nino any day.”

“Thanks, Mrs Camacho,” she says, tearing up.

Mrs Camacho hugs her and gives Mike a kiss on the head, then leaves.

Jessica holds her arms to him and scoops him up in a hug, kissing his head and making him giggle wildly. She smells his head, his soft baby-curls. That is the best smell in the world. It makes her forget that anything outside is wrong. It’s just her and her baby.

“How's my baby today?” she asks, jiggling him so she can see his little face. He’s such a beautiful baby – she thinks he looks a lot more like Will than her, with his open, handsome smile, but Will thinks the opposite. “No, Jess, he has your big, kind eyes. He’s you all over.”

Mike beams back at her. “Good, Mama!”

Perhaps she’s biased, but she’s pretty sure he’s a genius.

Well, maybe not a genius, but above average. He’s picking up words and comprehension pretty quickly for a two and a half year old.

“How are you, Mama?” he burbles.

She beams back at him. “Good, baby. I’m with you.”

She tickles his chin and he laughs and laughs. She thinks she couldn’t get sick of it if she tried.

Later, Will comes home.

She’s already put Mike to bed, and is reading James Baldwin's If Beale Street Could Talk again. It’s one of the few treasured things she brought here from the city. Long way away now.

He looks tired, but he smiles on seeing her. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.”

She gets up, smiling, and goes to him. She wraps her arms around his neck and he wraps his arms around her waist. “Same to you, sugar.”

He leans forward and kisses her. Whatever stress of the day has been lingering in her body quickly fades away. His arms are strong and protective, and she feels safe there.

“I’m keeping your dinner warm in the oven,” she tells him, and he smiles so gratefully she melts inside.

“That’s the reason I married you,” he says, and she laughs.

“Because I make you dinner?” she says, incredulous. “Here I thought it was because you loved me.”

He grins. “No, darlin'. It’s because you keep it warm when I work late. I thank God for sending me a woman who is both beautiful and kind. You’re my miracle, Jessie.”

She beams at him and pulls him into another kiss before she starts crying. He doesn’t need to know what happened today. He gets enough at the factory.

After dinner, they look in on Mike.

Will doesn’t want to wake him, but they look at him together. Peacefully asleep in his crib.

If she could, she would do anything to ensure that his life in the future is free of sadness, anxiety, hatred and loneliness. That he always feels beloved.

She knows she can’t though.

She doesn’t see Dale for a while at the diner. People aren’t kind but they aren’t hateful like he was either. The reality of his hatred for her seems to have shocked a lot of diner patrons into – if not renouncing their discomfort with her, at least not allowing it to come out.

It’s another stormy day. She had told Darryl she didn’t need him to walk her to the car park.

Her stomach drops clean out of her body when she sees her car though.

The windows have been smashed, the air has been let out of the tires and Dale has sprayed a misspelled word on the side of the car. She knows it must have been him - because there might be a lot of racists in this town, but she’ll bet there’s only one that hates her personally and is stupid enough to accidentally spray paint the name of an African country instead of that word he so loves to use.

It still hurts.

Will is helping his dad today, over at the farm, so the chances of being able to contact him are slim to none.

She could go inside, and tell Darryl. He’d probably drop everything to help her out, but if he gets fired over that she’ll be devastated. They can’t afford to piss off their boss, and Darryl is kind of a key cog in the work machinery.

She doesn’t want to tell them anyway.

She doesn’t even know what to do about the car. In a state of shock she just leaves it in the parking lot and decides to walk home, barely seeing ahead of her.

And that, of course, is when it starts pouring down.

She walks anyway.

She gets drenched. She keeps walking. It’s a bit of a walk to her house from the diner, but she doesn’t care.

She jumps when a car beeps her.

Her first response, a visceral stab of fear, is that Dale has come back to finish the job.

But she’s seen his car. He doesn’t drive a sensible station-wagon.

The car pulls over and winds down the window. Jessica is frozen on the side of the road. A dark-haired woman, who looks a little older than her but not much, smiles at her kindly and waves her over.

Jessica doesn’t move.

“Hi –“ the woman says, having to shout over the rain. “Why are you walking in the rain? Do you want a lift?”

She doesn’t want to tell this stranger the whole story while she’s getting further drenched and no closer to home. “I don’t have a car. Thankyou, that’s very kind, but I’m alright to walk,” she says, trying to find the last reserves of her politeness.

The woman looks worried. “You’re soaked through, you’ll get sick! Come on, it’s no trouble.”

Jessica looks at the woman – her kind face, her sensible white-mom haircut that falls just above her shoulders, and then looks back at the road. The rain doesn’t seem to be letting up anytime soon, she is soaked to the skin. And she’s still far off from home.

So she does something her father would be horrified by, having drummed it into her and her sister to never _ever_ do it, and accepts a lift from a stranger. A white stranger.

“Ok, thank-you,” she says, getting in.

There isn’t anyone else in the car she can see. She can only hope this isn’t an elaborate trap, and someone isn’t going to spring out and attack once she’s inside.

“I’ve got the heater on, just adjust the knobs if you’re not getting enough, ok?” the woman says.

Jessica nods. “Thanks,” she says quietly.

She sits on the passenger seat and feels awkward. “I’m sorry I’m making your seat all wet.”

The woman shakes her head. “No, no, it’s fine. The seats are vinyl, so they’re easy to dry.”

“Oh. Good,” Jessica says.

A moment of silence passes.

“So, where am I taking you?” the woman asks, kindly.

“You know Sherman St? If you could just drop me off there, that would be great,” Jessica replies. Technically she’s on Harris, which is off Sherman, but while she’s accepting a lift from a stranger she’s not stupid enough to tell her exactly where she lives.

“Harris St?” The woman asks, surprised. “That’s a bit of a hike from here. You were going to walk?”

Jessica nods.

“Do you usually walk?” the woman asks.

“Usually I have a car,” Jessica replies, trying to ignore the tightness in her voice.

The woman seems to sense it anyway, and doesn’t comment. Jessica is grateful.

“So, you work at the diner?” she asks, kindly.

“Yes, a few days a week,” Jessica replies, softening. “Do you go there ever?”

The woman laughs, and Jessica recognizes the tired strain in it. “Used to. We never seem to have time to go out to eat anywhere, anymore. Not with a toddler, anyway.”

Jessica smiles a little, understanding. “It really does change things, doesn’t it?” she says, shaking her hair out of the bun she puts it in for work.

The woman smiles, recognizing the presence of another mother. “You’ve got one of your own?”

Jessica nods, smiling. “Best thing in my life, but don’t tell my husband that.”

The woman laughs. “I hear that. I love my husband to bits, but the way he pouts and gets upset sometimes you’d think he was the two-year old.”

Jessica smiles a little. “Yours is two? Mine’s the same age.”

“Oh, wow! Is yours a terror?” she asks.

Jessica finds herself smiling even more, even though she’s still cold, and wet. “No, he’s a sweetheart. Never stops smiling.”

The woman nods, smiling. “Aw, that’s nice. My boy is good, mostly, but he’s a little explorer. He’s always wandering off somewhere. You gotta keep a close eye on him, make sure he’s not wandering into the street or something. The other day he almost fell down the basement steps, gave me the biggest heart attack, I swear to God.”

Jessica nods. “Well, maybe that means he’s going places?”

The woman laughs, a surprised kind of sound. “That’s one way to look at it. You’re funny, I like that.” 

She looks at Jessica. “I’m so sorry, I just realized I’ve been talking to you all this time and I never introduced myself or asked your name. I’m Sharon,” she says, sheepish.

“That’s alright. Nice to meet you, Sharon,” she says, with a grin. “Jessica.”

“Nice to meet you, Jessica. That’s a nice name,” Sharon replies. “I’m named after a family friend. Jessica’s less of an old-lady name.”

Jessica grins. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. I like yours.”

“Well, thanks. It does the job.”

Jessica giggles, a little. She warms her hands in front of the heater.

“So, Jessica, are you new in town? I think I’ve seen you around once or twice,” Sharon asks.

Jessica watches the rain, still thundering down outside. “Yeah, we moved from Chicago. About seven months ago.”

“Chicago? Wow,” Sharon says, a little wistful. “I went there once in college, I loved it. Great music. I wanted to move there before we had kids, but Zach said it’d be much safer to raise our kids here than in a city.”

Jessica knows what he probably meant by that. People either think Chicago is exciting and love the music, or they think it’s a crime-ridden hellhole full of dangerous poor people who don’t look like them. Or both.

“I guess it would be for your kids,” she replies, trying not to sound too bitter. “For us, Chicago was…friendlier.”

There’s an awkward pause.

“I hope you won’t think I’m being rude, Jessica,” Sharon starts, carefully, quietly.

Jessica holds her breath. That sentence often doesn’t lead anywhere good.

“But you just looked so…how should I…you looked so damn beaten-down, when I saw you before. I just thought, she could use a favour,” Sharon continues, and Jessica is relieved.

“You were right,” she admits, looking straight ahead and trying to ignore the tightening in her throat.

“You don’t have to say, but what happened to your car? Is your husband using it?” Sharon asks, with a note of concern.

“Um,” Jessica starts, and then without meaning to, bursts into tears.

“Oh, honey,” Sharon says, sympathetically. She pulls off the road and parks, and starts rummaging in her bag. She pulls out a packet of tissues and offers one to Jessica. Jessica takes it, gratefully.

She looks almost like she wants to offer some kind of physical comfort, like a hug or a pat on the back, but is unsure whether to give it.

“I’m sorry,” Jessica says, embarrassed. “I never go to pieces like this, it’s not how I was raised. I don’t know what’s wrong with me today.”

Sharon shakes her head. “No, don’t be sorry. You’re having a bad day. It’s alright to be upset.”

“The worst day,” Jessica sniffs, and Sharon pats her on the back – tentative, and then more assured when Jessica doesn’t flinch – and she finds herself explaining what had happened.

Sharon shakes her head angrily. “Oh, I really hate Dale Henderson. He’s sick, honestly. And he always leers at me at the grocery store.”

“He’s a creep. I don’t want to let him think he’s getting to me, but I don’t know what to do,” Jessica says miserably, dabbing her eyes. “Not to mention, I didn’t tell my husband about Dale getting kicked out of the diner because I didn’t want him to worry, but he’s not going to be happy to hear about the car.”

“It’s not your fault. You couldn’t stop a guy like that, not with his friends. You’d be putting yourself in danger,” Sharon says, worriedly.

Jessica nods. “I just – how am I supposed to get out of his crosshairs? Suppose he comes for my husband, or God, Mike – “ she says, dissolving into terrified sobs.

Sharon moves her arm so it’s encircling her comfortingly, leaning over the divider.

“I’m so sorry, Jessica. I wish I had something more comforting to tell you, but you don’t need me to tell you that a lot of people in this town are small-minded. I – I’m not sure what I would do if someone took my son away,” she says and her voice cracks. “But you know, it’s not everyone. You have a friend in me, if you want. And Zach can be a bit grumpy, but he’s a good man, and he knows what’s right. I’m sure he’d support you both if it came down to it.”

Jessica sniffles. “Thankyou, Sharon. This – it really means a lot.” 

They look out at the rain.

“You know what I do when I’ve had a totally shit day?” Sharon asks.

“What?” Jessica asks.

Sharon pulls a cassette out of the holding area, which is stuffed with tapes of music that Jessica’s probably heard on the jukebox at work, but doesn’t really recognise. Rock songs.

“I listen to this song.”

Sharon hands her the cassette. The picture is a black and white couple on a cream background.

“Who are –“

“We’ll get to that. Just listen,” Sharon says soothingly, and presses play.

Steady drumbeat. A guitar riffs.

_Listen to the wind blow, watch the sun rise._

Jessica feels goose bumps rise on her skin.

Maybe it’s that they’re in a stopped car while it’s _still bucketing_ rain and her emotions are heightened, but listening to it - somehow she doesn’t feel where she is. Like she’s not in town, and her day happened to someone else, and it’s just them and the music.

Sharon closes her eyes and nods along, almost spiritual behaviour.

Jessica never listens to this kind of music usually, but this is something else entirely. Gothic and vaguely threatening and powerful. It reminds her of her aunts in Louisiana, telling ghost stories about witches and broken promises and foolish men.

Sharon sings along the chorus, and by the second or third chorus Jessica finds herself singing too.

Just when she thinks it can’t get any more intense, it amps up into a guitar solo.

“This is the part where we lose it, because it’s just us,” Sharon tells her, with a grin.

“Ok,” Jessica says, apprehensive but excited.

She shakes her hair around wildly, and it’s almost dry now it’s out.

Sharon bangs her head around, looking distinctly less middle-class Mom as Jessica’s first impression of her had been. Jessica wonders if she went to college, if she listened to records and danced like this with friends.

There’s silence for a moment as the song fades out. Sharon turns the volume knob down.

Jessica breathes out. “Wow, that was…you were right. It did make me feel better.”

Sharon smiles widely. “Works every time. That’s the magic of Stevie.”

Jessica looks at her. “What band is it again?”

Sharon looks surprised. “You’ve seriously never heard of Fleetwood Mac?”

Jessica chuckles. “I’m not big into rock music, ok? Unless it’s blues. Muddy Waters and stuff.”

“Muddy Waters?” Sharon says, her turn to be confused.

Jessica chuckles again. “Father of the best Chicago blues, just _insanely, divinely_ gifted. Maybe I can play it for you some day.”

Sharon grins. “I’d like that.”

She passes the cassette to Jessica. “It’s called _Rumours._ Zack bought me the record for my birthday, and it was like a religious experience when I first got to listen to it properly, alone. When Zack took the baby for a walk. I bought the cassette too though, so I could listen to it in the car. Which probably seems silly to you, I’m now realising.” Sharon laughs self-consciously.

Jessica shakes her head, hair fluffed up from drying out and falling over her shoulders. “No, no, I get it. In case of emergency, break glass, grab the cassette tape, right?”

Sharon laughs. “Yeah, something like that.”

Sharon looks at her, warmly. “You ready to get going?”

Jessica nods. “Yes thanks, Sharon. You’re really too good for this place.”

Sharon looks at her. “So are you, I think. But I hope it’s not all bad.”

Jessica thinks, and decides. “No, it isn’t.” She looks at Sharon. “Can we play it again?”

Sharon smiles excitedly. “Abso- _lutely_. Let’s do this!” she says, and rewinds it back to the first song, and turns it up.

Jessica closes her eyes for a moment, listening to the plodding drum beat, letting the music wash over her. Sharon sings along, and she thinks Sharon’s got a nice voice.

***

“So you have an art history degree?” Jessica asks, fascinated.

“You’re the only person who says it like that, thank you,” Sharon replies, with a wry grin.

“No that’s amazing! I wasn’t ever gonna get to go, not like there was any money to…but I would have liked to study art. Or music. I love music,” she says, wistfully.

“You’re a great singer! I try my best, but I’m no Stevie Nicks.”

“To be fair, it would be hard to be. And you’ve got a pretty voice.”

Sharon smiles. “Thanks. But you – you have what everyone wants. Did you ever sing publicly?”

Jessica looks out the window. The rain has finally slowed down a little. “Yeah. When I was a kid I used to sing in church. I loved that.” She feels a powerful hit of nostalgia. “Used to sing in bars, later. Not professionally, or anything, I wasn’t trying to – they were just places I’d be waitressing in, and they’d say, please get up there we need someone to fill this twenty minute slot, someone dropped out.” She laughs. “It was silly.”

“But you enjoyed doing it? Why don’t you do it anymore?” Sharon asks, gently.

Jessica sighs. “Lots of reasons, I guess. My pops hated it. Didn’t like me having jobs in bars, hated the idea of me singing in them even more.” She snorts, bitter. “I think the final straw was when I met Will. The old man kicked me out of the house, calling me all sorts. Saying no harlot daughter of his would live under his roof. I think I’d kissed Will _once_ at that point, and it’s not like I told him about that.”

“Oh, that’s awful,” Sharon says, empathetically. “Where did you go?”

“To live with Will,” Jessica replies, and she feels a deep pang of affection for him. His kind eyes and wide, warm smile. His absolute protection of her, without stifling her. “We hadn’t known each other that long, he lived in a tiny apartment on the South Side but he said he knew already that I was the girl he wanted to marry.”

“Wow,” Sharon says, awed. “Zack proposed to me kind of out of the blue, after three years of dating. Well I guess after that time it’s not like I’d never thought about it, but he just asked me on this camping trip, no ring, just _do you want to get married_?” She laughs. “Kind of puts mine to shame.”

“Was it a nice spot?” Jessica asks. She’s never been camping. She and Will always figured it was more of a white thing. But she can maybe see the appeal of sitting somewhere secluded with the person you love, maybe near a lake.

“Oh yeah, down at the Acadia National Park. It’s really beautiful there, and peaceful,” Sharon says, a nostalgic look in her eyes. “I know it doesn’t sound epically romantic, but I didn’t even mind that he didn’t get a ring. It was the way he asked, that I loved. He’s very matter-of-fact, and I’m very head in the clouds. I think we kinda balance each other out.”

“I get that,” Jessica says, warmly. “And I think it’s romantic if it works for you. Who cares what anyone else thinks?”

“Right on,” Sharon says, smiling. “You’re very wise, Jessica. How old are you?”

“Just turned twenty-seven,” she replies.

“Really?” Sharon asks. “Sorry, I hope I’m not offending you, I’m just – surprised. I know people older than me with half your sense of the world.”

Jessica smiles, surprised. “I really don’t think I’m that wise. Wiser would have been not to get cut off from my family,” she says, and her smile fades. “I have a sister that I write to, but she’s kind of…stopped writing back.”

She looks down.

“Oh, I’m sorry. It’s really awful to be in fights with family. Zack didn’t speak to his brother for two whole years, they’re both so stubborn,” Sharon says, sadly. “How old were you – when?”

“When I left?” she continues. “Twenty-two.”

Sharon sucks in a sharp breath. “That’s so young! I can’t believe your father would put you out on the street like that, at that age!”

Jessica shakes her head. “You don’t know my pops. Bad temper.” She takes a breath.

“Your mom didn’t stop him?” Sharon asks.

Jessica hesitates.

“Oh, don’t answer me, I’m too nosy for my own good,” Sharon continues, embarrassed.

“No, no it’s alright,” Jessica says, shaking her head. “I’m sure she would’ve. She died when I was nine.”

Sharon looks at her guiltily. “I’m so sorry for bringing it up.”

“Don’t be,” Jessica says honestly, looking back at her. “It’s not your fault. I’ve made my peace with God about it.”

Sharon nods, looking a little more mollified. There’s a pause. “And then, can’t have been too long after you left you became a mother yourself, right?”

She smiles. “Yeah. I was pregnant within a year, at twenty-three, and I was waitressing until basically the last few weeks because we needed the money. Then Mike came along when I was twenty-four. Best thing to ever happen to me.”

“I hear you,” Sharon agrees. “I want another one, but Zack isn’t sure. He’s worried about costs and things, but I have siblings, and I want my son to have them. He’d be a great big brother, I can feel it already.”

Jessica smiles more. “I know what you mean. I think my man would love us to have more. I’d love to give them to him. I want Mike to have siblings. Enough to start a family band,” she jokes.

Sharon laughs. “Exactly. Although Zack’s not musical at all. He has a boring adult job.”

Jessica laughs too. “Do you have a boring adult job too?”

Sharon shakes her head, smiling. “No! I used to give art classes, and music lessons. These days I only do a few music lessons, because I’m at home with the little one.”

“I like that,” Jessica says. “Does he like music?”

Sharon beams. “I think so. He’s enthusiastic, anyway.”

“That’s half the battle, then,” Jessica replies, with a grin.

Sharon’s quiet for a moment.

“I’m not even sure if I can have another kid, though. The first time it was… pretty difficult. I was this close to giving up trying, when I found out I was pregnant.”

“I’m sorry,” Jessica says, feeling unsure of what else to say.

She thinks.

“But you’d definitely want one, if you could? Here?”

“Maybe not now,” Sharon says. “I’d at least need time to convince Zack. But yeah, I think I’d have my other one here. It’s where we live, after all.”

She looks at Jessica. “You wouldn’t have any more here?”

Jessica shakes her head darkly. “We want others, sure. But I guess – we’d need money, and with more children, I’d have to give up what little I make at the diner to look after them.”

There’s a moment of silence, where she hesitates to say it. Sharon doesn’t intrude.

Jessica sighs. “And I’m – I’m afraid of bringing them up here,” she says, in a small voice. “I mean, I’m already afraid for Mike. What kind of mother would bring more children into this kind of hatred?” she says, voice cracking.

Sharon makes an empathetic noise. “Aw, hon, I’m so sorry. Honestly, in your position, I’d feel the same way,” she says sadly. She sighs. “I know it’s not the same for you as it is for me, Jessica. But I understand – maybe it’s part of being afraid to have more…I don’t know what I’d do if – if someone hurt my kids.”

Jessica nods slowly. “Yeah, I – there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for mine. I’d fight – I’d use every ounce of strength I had if I had to,” she says, and her voice shakes a little.

“It wouldn’t just be you, ok? We’d fight for you. You have friends in this town, Jessica. I mean it,” Sharon replies, seriously.

Jessica looks at her, and feels her eyes getting hot again. “Really, deeply, Sharon – that means a lot. It would to Will, too. I think you guys would get along.”

Sharon smiles. “I’d love to meet him sometime.”

She looks at Jessica for a moment, and then looks back to the road. “It’s funny, I know it’s a pretty common name, but your husband being called William – that’s my little boy’s name.”

“Really?” Jessica asks, surprised despite herself. It is a common name, after all.

“Really,” Sharon replies. “Although we call him Billy. It seems a bit ridiculous to call a baby William when you’re just playing with him.”

Jessica smiles. “Yeah, I suppose.”

“We should have a playdate sometime. I only know one other mother around here who I like,” Sharon says, after a moment.

“I’d like that,” Jessica says, smiling.

“Can you switch the cassette? Play the second track. You’ll like it. It’s a different vibe, though,” Sharon asks, and she does, curious.

Faster drumbeat. Dreamy guitar.

Sharon sings softly along, and Jessica smiles, looking at the sodden streets.

_Thunder only happens when it’s raining…_

Jessica hugs Sharon for a long moment before she leaves the car, and they promise to get in touch about family hangouts.

Sharon gives her a landline number. She doesn’t have one to give to Sharon.

She gets back in, pays Mrs Camacho and hugs Mike to her chest.

He’s snuggly and tired, happy to see her after a day without her – even though he seems used to it by now.

“I will never abandon you, baby,” she whispers into his soft, tight curls. It’s like a prayer. An intention she is putting into the world. “I would do anything for you.”

“Mmm,” he says, snuggling closer, blissfully ignorant of the meaning of her words.

Jessica does her best over the coming months.

Will gets the car fixed by a sympathetic mechanic from a different town, who drives all the way into town with his tow truck and takes it back to his workshop. Jessica feels like he deserves gold bars for the magic he works with it, but he refuses to accept much money at all.

Sharon is a good friend, even though they have trouble actually finding time to see each other.

They never seem to have time for their children to meet, even though they keep mentioning it to each other.

Sharon comes into the diner, orders coffee, and chats with her.

She brings her little boy. Jessica knows she’s biased, because no other child comes close to hers in cuteness, but she has to admit Sharon’s is pretty adorable. His blue eyes are always excited, and he reaches out for her like he knows her.

“He’s small for his age,” Sharon worries to her. “And he only speaks in short sentences, because he’s not really forming words properly right now.”

Jessica looks at him, scribbling on a colouring book with a tightly held crayon. “Maybe he’s just a late bloomer. Looks like his motor skills are coming along nicely though.”

Sharon smiles, gratefully.

The first time Sharon comes over for dinner, she comes alone. She tells them Zack is really under the pump at work, and so he’s at home with Billy, working. Jessica doesn’t press her about it, although she catches the brief look in Will’s eyes.

They get along well though. They talk about art and music. Will puts on Nina Simone’s live _Nina at the Village Gate,_ and Sharon loves it. She’s familiar with Nina’s music, and Jessica is slightly surprised, but not really.

Sharon empathises when Will talks about how they left Chicago because he couldn’t get work, and finally he’d given in and come back to the town he grew up in, to get work and help his father work the farm he grew up on. She senses that they don’t have an easy relationship, especially if it took nothing less than the threat of homelessness and starvation for him to bring his family here.

Sharon adores Mike, when Jessica bring him out. “What a beautiful boy!” she says, immediately slipping into enraptured-mom-mode. She tickles him and he giggles wildly. “How old are you, Mike?”

“I’m three,” he says, proudly, holding up three fingers. He’s already counting on one hand. Jessica is still certain he’s a genius, but she laughs and sits down next to him, putting her arm around him. “Not yet, baby. Two more months. Almost three.”

He laughs, brightly, unashamed. “Al-most three, Sharon. I’m almost three.”

Sharon laughs. “My Billy turned three just before I met your mama. Maybe you can meet him soon.”

Mike claps his hands delightedly. Jessica looks at Will, and he smiles at her, relaxed and happy for the first time in a while.

When Sharon leaves, she hugs Jessica. “We have to do this again. I’ll make sure Zack comes. Maybe I can even bring Billy. Next time!”

Jessica and Will smile. “Definitely next time!”

As they wash-up, Will says, “She’s nice. I like her.”

Jessica looks at Will. “Admit it, you didn’t think you were gonna like her.”

Will shakes his head. “I never said I wasn’t going to – “ he says, and smiles. “Well, I do now.”

He’s quiet for a moment.

“What is it?” she asks.

“But you really think her husband is coming within a mile of here? With his son?” Will asks, not looking at her as he puts a dish away in the drying rack.

She pauses. “I don’t know. I hope so…it would be nice for Mike to have a friend here.”

Will pauses, and nods. “Yeah. I’d like that.”

Jessica works. Dale takes to leering at her and shouting from his truck when he passes, but he doesn’t come back to the diner.

Will works. Some of the workers complain about him, and he finds himself getting less shifts at the factory. “It’s fine,” he says calmly. “At least I’m not driving for an hour each morning. And I can help Dad out more, he’s been at me that he needs me there more often.”

She continues to see Sharon, but not as much as either would like. They keep not being able to set up a good date for a playdate. They’re always either working or Sharon’s taking her boy to visit her parents, or something. Something always gets in the way.

***

They have Leroy over for dinner every so often. He eats healthily, and keeps fit with all the work he does on the farm, just him and Will and one other farmhand.

She worries about him being lonely, though. Shirley died when Will was a teenager, and since then Leroy seems to live a solitary life – getting up early, and working the farm till late, rinse, repeat. He doesn’t often go to Church either, but she can’t blame him for that.

They used to go every Sunday in Chicago, and she misses it. There are only three religious places in and near the town, a Catholic church, an Anglican one, and a newer-looking Jewish church (she’s sure it’s not called that, but she’s never known any Jewish people to ask). They went to a Baptist church back home, and she’d been raised in that tradition. Will had told her his mother used to take them to one out of town, when he was young, but it burned down before he came back here. She’d like to be able to give Mike that sense of community – but she never felt welcomed in either of the churches, and even the Jewish faith leader tended to watch her distrustfully if he saw her walk past, or if he saw her at the shops. She had never imagined that you could feel unwelcome in a church, but she knows why – they act like Good Christians, but they don’t want _her_ and _her family_ in their community. She hopes God understands. She still prays at home, anyway.

Leroy has drunk too much on this occasion, and as they always do, he and Will are getting at each other.

“What would you know about it, Dad?” Will says, tiredly. “You don’t have any friends here.”

“Oh, you think that’s my fault, boy?” Leroy retorts, angrily. “This miserable town, these people don’t want to be kind to people like us. They want our backs against the wall.” He turns to her. “That woman you think is a friend won’t be there when it counts. They’ll _always_ choose each other, when it comes down to it.”

“Don’t talk to Jess like that, Dad,” Will says, angrily.

“Leroy, maybe you’d better sleep here tonight,” she says, calmly as she can.

“I’m fine!” he says, recalcitrantly.

“You’re not, and I’m driving you home,” Will says, frustrated. “Goddamn ridiculous,” he mutters. “Our toddler doesn’t even act like this.”

“He will one day!” Leroy fires back. “I’m holding on just to spite these people. Anger is the only thing that keeps us alive, boy, you know it. Just like I taught you, one day he’ll have to make the choice between holding the gun and having it – “

“ _Pressed against your forehead_ , I remember, Dad!” Will recites, sounding both angry and exhausted.

“Voices!” Jess scolds both of them, not able to go loud enough to break through. “You’ll wake Mike up –“

She hears a cry. “ _Mama?_ ” he calls, upset, from his room.

She glares at them. “Great, thank you both.” She looks at Will. “I think you should drive him home.”

Leroy is breathing heavily. “He has to be angry, Jess. He won’t survive without it.”

***

Will and Leroy patch things up like usual, because they have to. Leroy apologises gruffly – or as much as he ever does – and she accepts graciously, but she can’t stop thinking about it.

She thinks about James Baldwin, and something she read that he’d said, about anger.

She wonders if she’s in a rage, too. She doesn’t think so, but then she thinks about the car, and countless other smaller slights, and she thinks maybe she is. But she has to bury it, to keep going.

She wants Mike to survive. She wants him to be conscious of the world around him. But she doesn’t want him to be like Leroy – anger is important, but it’s corrosive too. Bitterness and anger has corroded Leroy, and she’d be devastated to see her son end up like that.

She wonders if they’ll ever leave here, and can’t see it happening.

***

There are times when that doesn’t seem so bad. Work is relatively calm, and Sharon often comes in to say hi.

Sharon finally gets her husband to join them the next time she comes to dinner.

“I’m so, so sorry, I know we’ve been trying to sort it forever, but Zack’s sister is staying in Portland with her family, and she really wanted to look after Billy today, have a little city adventure with his cousin. I know it’s _terrible_ timing, but –“ she looks at Zack. “You can’t say no to family.”

“Absolutely. Family’s too important,” Jessica accepts, warmly. She can guess at what Will is thinking without looking at him.

“Shame, though. Mike was looking forward to it,” Will says, with just enough of a gracious smile.

It’s possible that his sister really did just decide to take him out this day, but it certainly smells a bit like a stall tactic.

Zack is polite, but stiff, when he’s introduced to them.

For a while, Jessica thinks that it was a bad idea to try and make this friendship work with both their husbands. The conversation, when it’s not between the three of them who have previously met, is awkward and stilted and, at one point, borderline confrontational.

She goes to put Mike down, and when she comes back something’s changed for the better.

Maybe the meal, or the wine, but suddenly Zack and Will are discussing jazz. Zack seems too square and orderly, with his pocket protector and neat hair and sensible job at the hydroelectric plant to ever imagine him losing it to Fleetwood Mac. He seems too neat and orderly to ever enjoy something as unstructured as jazz. But she sees his face as he talks about it with Will – he really seems to love it, and blessedly, doesn’t seem to be acting like he knows everything about it – and suddenly, she can see how someone as creatively messy and fun as Sharon could have fallen for him.

They both like Miles Davis, and Will puts on _Kind of Blue_. She’s never been big into jazz, but it reminds her of home. Like being in a café back in Chicago, with friends, drinking coffee and reading the paper together.

Sharon hugs her as she’s leaving, and Zack even shakes her hand, only slightly awkwardly. “Good boy you’ve got there,” he says nicely, and she realises what she thought was uncomfortableness with them is maybe also just an intense social anxiety.

Because he also smiles warmly at Will, and promises to lend him an album called _Darkness On The Edge of Town,_ and Will grins, and says he’s looking forward to it.

“We’ll have to bring Billy next time, right, Zack?” Sharon asks, smiling.

“Uh, of course,” he says, awkwardly, and then smiles. “I think he’d like that.”

Maybe, she thinks. Just maybe, it might be alright. Is a handful of friends enough in a town where everyone else either hates or barely tolerates you?

***

Mike’s birthday is in early December, and it’s dangerously snowy. They put snow chains on their car wheels and double check the brake lines, but since the first attack Dale seems to have gotten bored.

They can’t afford much, but they want to have a small gathering for Mike’s birthday. Sharon comes over early to help decorate, saying that Billy will be along with Zack, but Dad is taking him to look for a Christmas tree.

Jessica feels her heart sink a little, but she doesn’t say anything about it. Mike still seems thrilled to see Sharon.

A little later, she opens the door to see Leroy. She’s surprised to see him – they’d invited him, of course, but he had been crotchety and vague about whether he’d actually come.

“Leroy! Glad you made it!” she says, letting him in.

“He is my grandson, after all,” he says. “Where’s the boy?”

She notices he’s holding a little wrapped package.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she says, smiling.

“Thought he could use something fun,” he says gruffly.

Jessica beams. “Thankyou, Leroy. It means a lot. I’m sure it does to Will, too.”

“It’s nothing special,” Leroy says, shaking his head, embarrassed.

She takes him over to where Mike is sitting with Will and Sharon.

Jessica clocks the worried look in Will’s eyes, takes a quick breath and introduces Sharon to Leroy.

Leroy, to her surprise, is polite – or polite for him – if a little stiff. Sharon is as nice as ever, and the moment is defused. She breathes a sigh of relief.

“Baby, your grandad’s got something for you,” she says to Mike. Leroy looks down at him and hands him the small, brown-wrapped gift.

“It’s not much,” Leroy says, abruptly. He watches Mike unwrap it, looking nervous all the same.

Mike’s eyes light up when he opens it. It’s a small, knobbly, but lovingly crafted wooden duck with small wheels and a string. “Mama, look!” he says, excited.

“That’s amazing, baby! What do you say to Grandad?” Jessica says, overjoyed for him.

Mike thanks Leroy ecstatically, and Leroy nods awkwardly. Jessica imagines it’s been a while since he’s given any gifts to children.

She turns to him as Mike goes to play with the duck. “That was really sweet, Leroy,” she says to him and kisses his cheek.

He half-smiles. “He’s a good kid, Jess. You’re a good mother to him.”

This is the most affection she’s ever gotten from Leroy and she’s momentarily speechless.

She hears Will in the background, coming back out from the kitchen. “What do you have there, Mikey?”

She smiles, and they turn to look at him. Will looks strangely emotional, for a moment, and just nods at Leroy. Leroy nods back.

***

Sharon looks worriedly at the snow falling outside, just for a moment, before returning to conversation with Marie. Even Darryl has managed to get here for an hour or two, and is in deep conversation with Mrs Camacho from next door.

Jessica notices Sharon’s look and shares her own with Will.

His look says, _they’re definitely coming, I guess._

Her look says, _it is snowing outside, cut them some slack._ But privately, she has to agree.

An hour into the party, Sharon is looking very worried.

“Are you alright?” Jessica asks her in an undertone.

Sharon nods. “I – it’s probably ok. I’m just worried about them. In the snow.”

“I’m sure – they’re probably being held up,” Jessica says, with conviction she doesn’t feel.

Sharon looks at her, with a new anxiety. “Jess – you know that it’s not – “

Whatever it’s not, Jessica doesn’t find out because of the unmistakable knock on the door they hear. Sharon’s expression lights up with hope.

They both go to the door. Jessica’s heart lifts wildly to see the two people standing in her doorway. Zack is standing in snow-dusted winter clothes, pink-cheeked and cold-looking – holding a very padded Billy in his arms.

“Come in, come in!” Jessica says, quickly, already cold from the outside air.

Sharon throws her arms around them. “I’m so glad you’re ok!”

Zack uses his free arm to hug her back, an unusual display of public affection from him.

“M-m-mommy,” Billy pipes up, squirming under her kisses. Jessica wonders if he’s just cold, or if this is a new development in his speech problems.

Sharon laughs, sounding deeply relieved. “Sorry, sweetie.”

Zack lets him down, but holds onto his hand.

“What happened?” Jessica asks.

Zack looks at her, stricken. “I’m so sorry we’re late, I meant no disrespect. There was an accident because of the snow – not us, thankfully – but it meant we hit traffic leaving the tree farm and we just had to hope we’d get here as soon as we could.”

She looks at him, suddenly deeply appreciative of him. “It’s fine. You’re here now, and you’re both in one piece. Mike will be thrilled.”

Zack smiles, relieved.

Billy tugs on his arm. “Daddy, do you have it?”

Zack holds up a finger, unzips his puffer jacket and pulls a small wrapped gift out. “Yes, do you want to give it?”

At that moment, as if on cue, Jessica feels a little hand clutching her dress. She looks at Sharon, and Sharon looks back at her excitedly. Somehow, it’s happening. Finally.

She finds Mike’s hand. “Baby, this is Sharon’s son Billy. He’s your age.”

Mike’s smile could power the room for the rest of winter. Billy is shyer, but he hands over the present promptly. “Happy b-b-birthday,” he says, and blushes scarlet against his pale skin, going dead silent.

“Thanks so much!” Mike says, happily. He’d never gotten more than one present on a birthday before, not that she’d ever heard him complain.

He unwraps a small yellow Tonka truck. “Wow!” he says. “I love it!”

“W-what’s that?” Billy asks. Mike’s still pulling the wooden duck around. “It’s my new duck. It’s really fast.”

“Fast?” Billy asks, looking as incredulous as a three-year-old can.

Mike grins even bigger. He looks at the truck and holds it out to Billy. “Wanna race?”

Billy grins, and they’re running off.

“Be careful, Billy! Remember this isn’t our house!” Sharon calls after him, and shakes her head at Jessica. “Sorry. He’s excitable.”

Jessica is full of joy, and means to say something like, _of course, so is mike,_ so obviously she starts crying instead.

Sharon’s face falls. “Oh honey, what is it? I can go after Billy if you want –“

Zack just looks at her, worried.

Jessica shakes her head. “No – he’s fine –“

“Come here then,” Sharon says, and gathers her into a hug.

“I’m sorry,” she says, wiping her eyes. “I’m just – I’m so glad I met you. You’ve changed my life here.”

“No,” Sharon demurs, modestly. “I’ve barely done anything. You’re doing it.”

She smiles, still watery-eyed. “I’m trying. Thanks for being there.”

She smiles at Zack too. “You too, Zack. And thanks for moving heaven and earth to be here. Those roads are no joke at this time of year.”

Zack smiles in a surprised kind of way, worry forgotten. “Well, of course we wanted to be here. And I couldn’t let Billy down. He’s excited to make another friend. One of our neighbours – you know the local dentist? He has a kid Billy’s age, and that kid does _not stop_ babbling.”

Sharon laughs, in a kind of half-scandalised manner. “Zack! You can’t insult a three-year-old!”

Zack throws up his hands. “Who’s insulting? I think that kid’s got a future in talk radio. Or on TV. He couldn’t say more nonsense than they do.”

Jessica laughs, as Will comes up and puts a hand around her. “Everything alright?”

She beams at him. “Yeah, I think it is.”

***

Sharon and the family are visiting Zack’s parents for Christmas. The last time they see each other before the Christmas period, Jessica hugs Sharon tightly as she leaves. It’s just stopped snowing for a brief half-hour, so far.

“Just think, the next time I see you, it’ll be the start of a new decade,” Sharon says, excited. “1980.”

“Yeah,” Jessica breathes. “I don’t even know what to say about that. I hope – I hope it’s a good decade for our kids to grow up in.”

Sharon smiles at her. “Agreed. I guess I’ll see how it’s going before I try and convince Zack for another one.”

Jessica laughs. “You should though. Billy would be an excellent older brother.”

Sharon beams. “I know.”

She looks out at the street, where it’s already starting to lightly snow again, “Alright, now or never. See you in the eighties, I’m sure they’ll be even better.”

“I’d wanna hope so,” Jessica half-jokes, and Sharon huffs a laugh. “Ok, yeah,” she says, and gives her a soft look. “Look after yourself while we’re away, alright?”

Jessica nods. “We will. Don’t get into an accident on the roads, ok? I couldn’t bear it.”

Sharon nods. “Same to you,” she says and then, finally, slips out the door. Jessica watches her walk to her car, reflecting on what she’d said.

She wasn’t even a little bit joking about that last thing. If something happened to them, if some freak accident befell Sharon, or her little boy, or Zack, she would be devastated.

She puts the thought from her mind. She’ll see them in the new year, they’re coming around for dinner. Mike and Billy will play together, the adults will catch up on Christmas ridiculousness and it’ll be fine.

She goes to Mike’s room to check on him. “Mama?” he calls out, sleepily.

“Yes baby?” she answers, coming in.

“Can I have a hug?” he asks.

“You can _always_ have one,” she laughs. “My hugs for you are an inexhaustible resource, sweetness.”

“What does that mean, mama?” he asks, curious even though he’s sleepy, holding his little arms out for her.

She lets him wrap them around her neck, and holds his little body to hers. “It means…you will never run out of hugs, baby.”

“Good,” he says.

She settles him back into bed, turns out the light, but watches him sleep from the door for a moment.

Will, just home from work half an hour ago, wraps his arms around her waist and watches with her.

“He’s going to be ok, right?” she asks him, quietly.

“Yes, sugar. He’s a fighter like his mama,” Will whispers gently to her. “And a lover.”

She relaxes into him. “And he has his daddy’s strength of will.”

She turns around to him, pulling the bedroom door shut. He realigns his hands around her waist.

“He’s smart, and kind, and anyone who isn’t hateful anyway will love him immediately, like every one of our friends,” Will tells her reassuringly, smiling.

His smile still makes her weak.

“What’s this about?” he asks, stroking her face.

She looks at him. “Just…we were talking about the new decade. What to expect.”

Will nods. “Sweetheart, we can never know. But our kid has our grit. He’ll be smart, and kind and loving, and whatever problems he has in the next ten years he’ll be alright because of it.”

Jessica stares at him, speechless, and then brings his face closer to hers in her face so she can kiss him silly.

Sharon’s ready to be home. The trip to visit Zack’s family was long, and the snow hasn’t helped the journey go by quickly.

Still, Zack’s been unexpectedly sweet. Relaxed even.

They turn into their house’s driveway, and they unload Billy.

“What are we going to do for dinner?” Zack asks, as they get in.

“We don’t have anything in the fridge, but I’ll go shopping tomorrow. Maybe I’ll just pick something up from the diner?” Sharon suggests.

“Alright,” Zack says. “Say hi to Jess for me.”

“I will,” she says, smiling and grabbing the keys off him.

It’s a Wednesday, so Jess is likely to be working.

When Sharon pulls into the carpark, she can’t see their car, but maybe she’d got a lift from Will.

She walks into the diner, smiling and makes eye-contact with Darryl, the cook she’d met at Mike’s birthday party. He looks ashen-faced when he recognises her.

“Come on back here, for a moment,” he says, seriously.

He opens the kitchen door, and allows her to come in.

A horrible, icy feeling starts to creep into her stomach, just at the moment she looks around and makes eye contact with Marie, a waitress she also met at the party.

Marie’s face drains of all colour and then crumples, and she starts crying. She throws her arms around Sharon, who pats her back awkwardly.

“Sharon…I’m so sorry,” she sobs. “It all happened so fast…I didn’t know until it was over…”

“What’s happened?” Sharon asks, voice choked with fear. She knows somehow, but she can’t bring herself to think it.

“Will and Jess – their house burnt down just before the new year,” Darryl says heavily, looking exhausted up close.

“Burnt down,” Marie sniffs. “That’s one way to put it.”

“But they –“ she starts, confused somehow. “So where are – “

Darryl looks at her, deeply pained.

“No…” she whispers. “Don’t –“ she begs, like if he doesn’t say it, it won’t be real. Their house burnt down, but they’re staying with his father on the farm, or with Marie, or even they’ve gone back to her family in Chicago.

“They didn’t make it out,” he says, voice breaking.

“No!” she says, grief and disbelief and anger jockeying for position. She looks at Marie, who nods, and feels herself break completely.

Distantly, she feels Marie’s arms around her, but it’s like she’s not even aware of her body anymore.

After a moment, an even-worse thought occurs to her and she gasps. “ _All_ of them?”

Darryl’s eyes are red. “I talked to the fire department, and they said Jess or Will might have made it out if they hadn’t being trying to get into Mike’s room. But somehow –“ his voice cracks again. “By some kind of miracle, that boy survived.”

She starts crying in earnest again, tears of relief and pain mixed together.

“Thank God. Oh thank God,” she says over and over. “Where is he now?”

“Child services, right now. They're not sure if old Leroy can take him,” Darryl says.

“That poor boy,” Marie says, still crying.

She drives home in shock, half-surprised she doesn’t get into an accident with how little she’s paying attention.

“Where’s the food?” Zack says, confused but easy-going. His face falls when he sees her. “What’s happened?”

“Jessica and Will. We weren’t there,” she says, and breaks down again.

Zack goes to comfort her.

***

She has several arguments over the coming days with Zack, after she suggests they take in Mike.

“It’s like you don’t even care about it! You just shut off!” she explodes.

“Of course I care, Sharon,” he says, angrily. “I lost friends too! But I won’t put my son in danger!”

“From a three year old boy?” she fires back, incredulously.

“No, from the men who hate him!” he gets out. “I feel awful for the kid, but he’s not mine. I have to put mine first. And you said he has a grandfather around here. Be better for him, anyway.”

She considers it, the devastation of Dale – who she is certain had a hand, and who she wants to get justice on – Dale and his friends, setting fire to their house. Endangering Billy. It’s staggering.

She eventually gives in to Zack’s point.

She hopes Leroy will be a good substitute parent. He is family, at least.

***

Sharon drives past their house – what’s left of it.

It’s a burned-out husk.

She listens to James Taylor and cries in her car.

_Won't you look down upon me, Jesus_

_You've got to help me make a stand_

_You've just got to see me through another day_.

She keeps meaning to go.

She doesn’t.

She didn’t get to go to the funeral. Marie explained that they tried to contact her, but no one knew how to when they weren’t home.

She doesn’t blame them, but she can’t bring herself to drive out to Leroy’s farm.

Eventually she realises she’s too afraid to face him. What does he understand of what happened? Does he ever smile that beautiful wide smile anymore?

How can she face him, knowing she failed his mother? Knowing she was too cowardly to be strong in her memory, when it counted?

She tries to talk to the police, but they don’t have a big force and most of them range from uncaring to downright hateful.

Butch Bowers is nonchalant, stopping just short of grinning as he explains to her.

“In a case like this, there isn’t much evidence,” he drawls, slowly. “Not much we can do, sorry.”

She’s never heard such a callously tossed off _sorry._

“Why bother pretending to be sorry, Butch?” she spits out, voice shaking with anger. “We all know you hated Will. You had it out for him.”

Butch does smile at this, as he strikes a match to light his cigarette. It’s chilling.

“Where’s your proof?” he says silkily, drawing it out. “We’ll update you if we learn anything new,” he says and one of his friends escorts her out.

One of the times she visits the station trying to get someone to do something, Butch walks her out himself. She walks as fast as she can, trying to get away from him.

“You need to stop coming here, Sharon, you’re making a disgrace of yourself,” he drawls, in a mockery of concern.

“You need to start doing your job, then, Butch,” she says, with all the contempt she can infuse into it. “There was a crime, and your job is to find out who is responsible.”

He smiles at her, that bone-chilling smile. She has nightmares about it sometimes, smoke and fire and seeing that smile in the darkness.

He drops his voice. “I think we know who was _responsible…_ ”

Her stomach drops. There’s a cold-steel glint in his eye.

“…That little shit for daring to come back here. And for bringing more of their breed. I’m _glad_ someone exterminated those roaches.” His voice is so twisted with loathing and disgust that it’s almost a weapon. And he’s gutted her with it.

She doesn’t like the way he says _someone._ She stands there shaking, and wonders if it’s worth being locked up for attacking a police officer. Whether she’d get away with putting rat poison in his coffee, and whether it would be worth going to jail forever over. In this moment, blood pumping loudly in her ears, she thinks it would.

Sharon tries her hardest to get someone to do something. No-one cares that two young black people died – it’s not news, and the police don’t care. Burnt out, she spends the rest of 1980 in a haze of grief.

Billy sometimes asks after them, and then stops. She thinks Zack might have asked him to stop. She tries to be there for him, but she’s so tired all the time.

Only when she almost puts Billy in danger does she wake up. She and Zack have a long, emotional conversation, about pushing through her grief and focusing on their family, and he agrees to start trying to have another baby with her.

She throws away the _Rumours_ cassette.

She puts Mike out of her mind, and never goes back to the diner. She gets a letter from Darryl, moved on to get work back home in Mississippi.

She doesn’t see Marie around, but hears she married a man and followed him to the city.

Old Mrs Camacho passes away, and she considers going to the funeral but doesn’t. She only met her once.

She doesn’t go to the farm. It’s too far away.

She focuses on her family.

She tries to remember how to be a good mother to Billy, and she thinks she’s getting pretty good after a while. She remembers why she fell in love with Zack, and towards the end of the year, as if by some divine blessing she gets pregnant.

Billy turns five, and she wonders if he remembers Mike. He never asks about them anymore. He only met Mike once, nearly two years ago.

He seems happy enough. She’s happy for his sake.

She buries her guilt and grief.

Dale Henderson’s car gets t-boned by a train at a level crossing somewhere out of town, and the word is that he was driving drunk. She wonders if it was just him and his usual alcoholic idiocy finally getting him, or whether the rumours that he owed money to dangerous people are true. She doesn’t want to think hateful thoughts, but for him – she can’t help but hope he suffered.

In the later months of 1981, when Billy is five years old, she gives birth to her second boy.

He’s so small. Was Billy ever that small?

They agree to name him George, after her father.

She holds him to her chest. “You’re safe, Georgie. I’ll protect you,” she whispers into his soft, tiny head, and he stops crying.

_February 2018_

Sharon potters around the garden of her little cottage, tending to her begonias. The Floridian sun is harsh but they seem to like it.

She's in the midst of Marie-Kondo-ing some old boxes she'd found in storage, but she'd thought the flowers looked thirsty through the window.

Bill had bought her that book, and she'd been very taken by it. She likes little self-help books.

She was supposed to be giving a piano lesson today, but her student had cancelled, and she'd felt at a loose end so she'd set herself this task.

Bill's always saying not to lift heavy boxes by herself at her age, but he's not here to scold her.

She comes back inside and accidentally knocks over a box of things from Derry that probably haven't been disturbed since the early nineties. She's been moving the same boxes of stuff around since before she settled in Florida.

She moves creakily down, cursing. Old, yellow mail. Why did she even hang onto it? It certainly doesn't spark joy in her, being reminded of that town.

She's about to bin the whole lot when she notices a letter with familiar handwriting.

She stares at it, hands shaking. They do that sometimes, that's the joy of being an elderly recovering alcoholic. But that's not why they're shaking now, she knows.

She unfolds the old letter with bated breath.

There are two pieces of paper, folded up, one addressed to Mike, and one with her name, on top. She picks that up first.

It’s dated at the top – _12/23/1979_.

 _Sharon,_ the letter starts, in the familiar writing. Her heart almost stops.

She draws a rattling breath.

_I’m not sure when you’ll get this. Maybe when you get back._

_Hopefully, I’m just being paranoid, or morbid, or something, and you can laugh about it with me._

_I’m just worrying about the new year I guess._

_I need a favour. I need you to give this to Mike, if I’m not there. If something happens – I don’t know. I know you’re convinced we’re in the clear._

_I hope so. We haven’t seen Dale around, but I don’t know. I think he and Butch Bowers go way back. He stopped Will as he was driving home the other day, and if Darryl hadn’t been passing and stopped to see what was happening. I worry he might have tried to arrest him. Or worse. Butch might play strong, but he’s not going to pick a fight with a burly ex-con like Darryl. Even though Darryl has a kinder heart than anyone gives him credit for, guys like Butch are only afraid of bigger white guys who look tougher than them._

_Please keep this on hand, if something does. You’re the person I trust most to do it, because Leroy isn’t sentimental and might throw it out. You can give it to Mike anytime – but he’d probably best get value out of it in his teen years._

_I know that sounds fatalistic. I hope I’ll be there to see them with you. But I want to be practical, I guess. This is just insurance that – I can be there for him in spirit if I can’t physically. Also – Will doesn’t know I’m writing this. He wouldn’t like it, so please don’t mention it to him._

_Thanks for everything you did for me this year (and here’s to many more of them, hopefully!)_

_Love, Jessica._

Sharon holds the letter in shaking hands and is surprised by a sob she didn’t realise she was holding in. She drops it onto the table in front of her.

Why didn’t she get it?

Strangely, her first impulse is to try and call Zack, even though she doesn’t know his number anymore. She knows he’s in Cleveland, but it’s not like they’re co-parenting a child anymore. Well, Bill wasn’t even a child anymore really when they broke up. Even if she had his number, what if his wife picked up? Too awkward. Not worth it.

She just wants to ask what happened to this mail. How did she never get something so important?

But then she remembers.

They’d been away, and the mailman had been leaving it on the front door mat instead of the mailbox because of the snow. It was just catalogues and late Christmas cards, mostly.

They’d swept it up in a pile, when they’d gotten home. She was going to go through it, when she got home from the diner.

Afterwards, she couldn’t bear to do it. She couldn’t even bear to look at it. She’d actually been – happy – when she returned. Tired from the car trip, but happy. The pile of mail she’d been planning to sort mocked her for her oblivious happiness, when all the while Jessica had been dead. That was the hardest part,mentally, it felt like Jessica had been alive until she’d gone to the diner. Until she’d found out what happened. But Jessica had been dead when they’d gotten home, smiling at each other and discussing mundane dinner plans. She’d been dead when Sharon had seen things on the road trip home and laughed, thinking, _I have to tell Jess about that, she’d find it hilarious._

She didn’t throw the letters out, but they must have been moved to a box, and then another box, and forgotten about. She’d had other things on her mind that year.

She can feel steady tears rolling down her cheeks, and takes off her glasses to wipe her eyes.

She picks up the Mike-labelled one, with deep guilt. Evidence of yet another way she failed Jessica, and him, and she wasn’t even aware she was doing it.

She puts it down, and picks hers up again. She rereads it, and notices there’s a line at the bottom she missed before, probably due to crying. _P.S. It will never be your fault, if something happens. You’ve changed our lives for the better._

Sharon sobs, and holds the letter to her lips.

She picks up Mike’s and considers it.

She shouldn’t read it.

It’s not hers.

But her friend has been dead for thirty-nine years now, and she’s made her peace with that, mostly. It was a long time ago. Now she’s both temporally and geographically distant from that town, that time, she’d thought it had dulled and faded in her memory. The bad and the good. The sharp-edged pain of all her loss, but also Jess’s laugh, and the sound Georgie used to make when he snored lightly, when they napped together.

But this letter has briefly resurrected her; her voice, her kindness. Things Sharon thought she’d forgotten.

She can never speak to Georgie again. He was too young to ever have left her anything like this, just the little simple notes kids write. She kept them, with all of his things. Zack didn’t want them, because his reaction to things like that was always the same, shutting off. He probably never talks about it with his new wife. She shouldn’t say new, it’s been a long time now.

But the letter is like being able to speak to her again. She wants more, even if it’s not hers.

She couldn’t give it to Mike if she wanted to. As far as she knows, he and Bill fell out of contact after Bill left for college.

She had turned to religion, after pulling herself out of her depression, to process her grief the first time; and then abandoned it in rage and grief at a God who would continue to take from her like this, when people like Butch Bowers had walked around scot-free. Then again, he’d met a gruesome end at the hands of his insane son, so perhaps that was some kind of divine justice. She can’t say, even now, that she feels any pity over it. Not after what he said, and what he might have done.

But all the same, she believes that something – if not the Lord, if not some kind of God – works in strange, mysterious ways. Because for ten years, the only way she had coped with her guilt and grief was to forget, was to bury the memory of the friendship and her worry for Mike, her guilt for not helping him. And then, in the grip of a new grief – even more cruel and excruciating than the last, guilt magnified by a factor of a hundred, what kind of mother doesn’t keep an eye on her son? What was so important that she was doing it when he disappeared? – there he was again.

_She had fallen asleep on the couch again. She liked to wait up for Georgie, some nights. She knew it was madness, that he’d been missing for months and that there was a slim to nil chance of him being alive, but maybe she was mad. It didn’t matter. She just had to be here, in case he came home and couldn’t get in. She had to listen out for his knock. She couldn’t let go of that._

_She hears the door open, and Bill’s voice drifting in. It isn’t Georgie. It never is._

_She hears him padding up the stairs, and realises it must be later than she thought, if Bill is home from school now._

_She hears footsteps into the living room. “I’m sorry, Bill, was I –“ she starts, slowly, and then breaks off._

_It’s not Bill. It’s a boy his age, wearing a white t-shirt and old-looking jeans._

_The physical resemblance hits her like a punch in the stomach. It winds her. She knows that face, even though it’s grown a lot in ten years. There’s something heavier in his eyes now, a decade of living in this town maybe. Maybe something else._

_He looks surprised, and a little worried. He has the same crease above his nose that she used to get._

_“I’m sorry ma’am, I didn’t think anyone was home. I’m a – I’m a friend of Bill’s, he said I could get some water from the kitchen,” the boy says, politely._

_“You’re Mike,” she half-whispers. His eyes widen. “Bill told me,” she lies, with a pang of guilt. Bill probably had told her about his new friend, to be fair, but she has so much trouble remembering things these days. She’s sleepwalking through the motions of life again, like 1980, but worse._

_“Yes, ma’am,” he says, in his polite voice._

_“I can get you a glass of water. And you can call me Sharon, you know,” she says, and her voice feels dusty and out of use._

_“Thankyou – Sharon,” he says, uncertain._

_He follows her into the kitchen, and watches her fill up a glass for him. There’s something strange in his expression, buried in his eyes. Something like pity, but not as condescending. Empathy._

_She wants to ask him so much, but she doubts he remembers her. And she doesn’t have the strength to explain how she knows him. So, she doesn’t._

_He half-finishes the glass and sets it down on the counter. “I’m sure lots of people have said it to you, so far,” he says, uncertainly, watching her. “But I really am sorry for your loss. I know I didn’t know him, but if he was anything like Bill, he was – amazing.”_

_She looks at him, earnestly apologising for her loss, her grief – the boy that should be demanding apologies from her, if he only knew – with his parents’ kindness, and she can’t bear it._

_She looks at him for a long moment, and he starts to look worried._

_“Thankyou, Mike –“ she says, voice cracking. “I –“ she starts, but is interrupted by Bill entering the kitchen._

_“Th-there you are,” he says to Mike. “I’ve got it.”_

_“M-Mike and I are going to the library, ok M-mom?” he says, turning to her._

_There’s a hardness to him that didn’t used to be there, and his stutter’s gotten worse since Georgie disappeared. He doesn’t seem angry at her, just resigned, which might be worse._

_“Oh, ok, honey…” she says, slowly. She has a headache. “I might take a nap then.”_

_“We’ll g-get dinner at the diner,” Bill replies, in that resigned voice. “Do you n-need anything b-before I go?”_

_“No, that’s ok hon,” she says, croakily._

_He looks strangely disappointed, for a moment, and then he motions for Mike to follow him out._

_Mike looks back at her for a moment, and then leaves._

_She looks for the half-open wine bottle she’d started last night. The shock of seeing him again, she just needs a little bit to calm herself down._

Sharon looks at Mike’s letter and decides to read it.

_To my dearest Michael,_

_I have loved you since before you were born. I loved the idea of you, and then I loved the reality. I hope to love you all my life, if not all of yours._

_It’s a hard thing to write, and I find myself barely being able to put these words to paper, but they’re important. If you’re reading this letter from me, it’s an unavoidable fact that I’m no longer there to tell you these things myself._

_The reality of our lives means that there are people here who wish us harm. I pray to God that they never succeed, but if they do, I want you to have this on record._

_First - You’re meant for more than this town. I want you to get out, if you can. I know you’ll grow into a smart kid, I’m amazed by you every day._

_Second – But while you can’t leave, I hope you make friends. I can’t see how you wouldn’t, because everyone who meets you now instantly loves you. My wish is that you’ll make friends who support you, who you can be a kid with. I hope you’ll have funny friends that make you laugh, that you can be silly with. I know they’ll love you with all of their hearts, like I do._

_Third – I know it’s hard, especially if one or both of us is gone, but I want you to be happy. So, so happy. I’m not sure how old you are reading this, but at any age I want you to remember to look after yourself, darling. It’s important to fight for your beliefs, and your rights, and for the safety of yourself and others, but don’t give in to the fight. Don’t be at war all the time. Find someone who is your safe harbour._

_If you have this letter, then you know Sharon’s there for you. She and her family – provided they’re still in town when you’re reading this, I hope so – will look out for you, even if we’re not there._

_I’m always at your side, Michael. I’m always watching over you. I’m in your very spirit, baby, you have my eyes. You have your father’s smile, and I hope he’s still there to see it._

_In this way, I’m not lost to you. I might be gone, but not my love for you. That you will always have._

_Our deepest love to you,_

_my greatest achievement as a person,_

_my happiest honour to have been one of your parents,_

_my sweet baby whose chest is rising and falling in comfortable sleep next to me,_

_from your mother,_

_Jessica Hanlon._

_(P.s. I don’t know where or when you’re reading this, and I hope you never have to, but – I love everything you are, whatever that is. I could never hate you. Remember that.)_

Sharon folds up the letter, and sits and cries for a moment.

Leroy had said that the house had burned down just after Christmas and before New Year 1979. The 27th of December, she remembers distantly.

Somehow Jessica sensed it. Maybe there wasn’t anything odd about that, maybe things had just got scarier when she and Zack had been away. But Jessica had always had a sort of sense about things. A nose for danger.

She suddenly wants to call her son. They’ve been repairing their relationship the last few years. She knew having a vague, depressed, alcoholic mother who slept all day, and an emotionally distant father who worked all the time had been difficult for him, and he’d seemed relieved when they told him their plans to divorce, just after he went off to college. They’d planned to do it then for a long time, even after she got her act together and joined _AA_.

His wife – Audra – seemed nice. She’d been surprised when Bill had said that he was dating her. Which is probably unfair, as his mother, but she was the kind of person who you sometimes saw on magazines at the grocery checkout. Bill – even with his books, and she had every one in her collection, was very proud of them – wasn’t the kind of famous that people recognised on the street. But she was very kindly and down-to-earth whenever she came to visit, and Sharon liked her, even if she didn’t know her all that well.

But they were often too busy with their life out in California to come down and see her much. She came to California to see them sometimes, but it wasn’t like they had grandkids to babysit and she had a bit of travel anxiety, now she was older, and she found Los Angeles a nightmare to get around so she often just caught up with him on the phone.

She suddenly remembers that she should start thinking of her as Bill’s ex-wife. It wasn’t that she’d forgotten, just that he’d taken a moment to tell her they were divorcing. He’d said it was amicable. She didn’t press him for why they were separating, although she was a little sad. She’d liked Audra.

Secretly she wondered if she’d set him up for failure, not staying with Zack. Well, it hadn’t been so much that she hadn’t stayed with him, as him doing the Right Thing and not leaving her until Bill was settled at college, and she had pulled herself enough to live by herself.

Lost in thought, she jumps when her phone goes off. She searches for it, and is surprised by the caller.

“I was just thinking about you,” she says with a smile, answering the call. 

“Really?” Bill asks. “Are you ok? Your voice sounds –“

“No, darling, I’m fine. Just a bit of a cold,” she white-lies.

“Alright,” he says, sounding unconvinced. “I just wanted to ask if you’re still ok for m-me to be at yours by Wednesday?”

His stutter is a lot better these days.

“I can’t wait,” she says, honestly. “Where are you now?”

“We’re in New Orleans, actually,” he says.

“Oh, that’s nice, what are you –“ she starts, and then stops. “Wait, who’s we? Are you and Audra –“

“N-n-no-“ he says, cutting her off. He almost sounds nervous, and she can tell because that’s when his stutter returns. “Th-that’s the th-thing.”

“Oh?”

“You remember M-mike? From Derry?” he says, and she almost drops the phone. Her eyes fall on his letter, in front of her.

“Uh, yeah,” she manages to get out. “How long has it been? I thought you weren’t in touch?”

Bill takes a moment. “I c-caught up with my old friends from home, about a year ago. M-mike’s doing a kind of long road trip around America, and I’ve been c-catching up with him for bits of it. I w-was w-wondering if you’d be alright w-with him coming to visit too. He can stay in a m-motel, if you w-want –“

She cuts him off, but not unkindly. “Nonsense! Plenty of room here, tell him – “ she pauses, unsure. “Tell him he’s welcome here, ok, Billy?” she says, slipping for a moment into mother-of-a-young-child mode again.

He doesn’t even scold her for the nickname. He sounds surprised, but grateful. “Thanks, Mom.” He pauses, like he’s going to say something else. “We’ll see you soon, then.”

“See you then. Can’t wait,” she says, and hangs up the call. She looks at the letter for a moment, and then gets up. She knows what she has to find.

***

Bill looks more relaxed than she’s ever seen him. It’s rare, anyway. Maybe the first time he introduced her to Audra, but even then, there was something in his eyes. A wall up, maybe one he’d had up for so long he couldn’t remember it was there.

This, though. This is how she remembers him, when he was a boy, when Georgie was still around. Relaxed and excited and interested in the world.

She almost cried, seeing Mike again. She’s glad she didn’t, though. He’s probably always thought she was a bit odd – odd being the nicest possible word for it – but he’s very polite to her, and he smiles warmly. He smiles so much like his dad, but it gives her a shiver to realise he’s older now than his father ever was.

She hugged him though, something you can blame on being a doddery old lady.

She teaches remedial art sometimes, to ex-cons and people in halfway houses. She’d gotten involved in it through being an _AA_ sponsor. Mike now – at forty, she can’t believe they’re both forty, because that makes her _ancient_ , although she kind of likes being an old broad too - has a look that she sometimes sees in people who’ve just gotten out of prison. Like they can’t quite believe it and they’re anxious to start living again, but they’re also curious. And like a weight has finally been lifted.

She wonders what he’s been through.

He and Bill are very comfortable around each other, she notices. She wasn’t exactly chaperoning school dances, but sometimes she saw them all together, they’d been comfortable then. But it’s not the comfortableness of children, it’s like – when her father had friends over from the war. They laughed and joked, but there was something shared there, something only they understand. Something only they could hold for each other.

Maybe it’s part of that look in Mike’s eyes, maybe it’s part of his prison. It seems to lift when he looks at Bill in any case. She wants to ask what it is, and what they’re healing from, but she’s afraid to.

But they’ve been brought together again. Strange ways, indeed _._

***

After dinner, Mike insists on washing-up. She protests, but he very nicely shuts her down, saying that she cooked.

“I’m so glad you reconnected,” she says, smiling. “He was always such a polite boy.”

Bill smiles, and she truly hasn’t seen him this open in years. She’d just always assumed it was their fractured relationship and family trauma. She’d never considered it was anything else.

“Yeah,” he says softly. “I’m g-glad too. He’s so – g-good,” he says, and his voice is deeply affectionate. She’s trying to place his expression on his face, the last time she’d seen it. Excited, happy, relaxed, nervous.

“M-mom,” he says, and he sounds nervous. “You know m-my divorce was finalised a wh-wh-“ he winces and shakes his head.

“It’s alright, honey. Take your time,” she says, as she always did.

He smiles at her, nostalgic, and takes a breath. “I haven’t been m-married for a bit, now.”

“Yeah…” she says, smiling, curious.

“I w-wanted to bring him here to m-meet you again. You now. And to m-meet him again,” he says, looking at her, and his eyes are almost shining. “Because w-w-we’re,” he says, and breaks off. He looks at her, determinedly. “I love him, Mom,” he says, without a single stutter. “He loves me. W-we’re together.”

She’s almost not surprised, when she thinks about the way they casually look after each other. The way they look at each other. Hearing him say it, in such an affectionate voice, and her happiness at seeing Mike again, and her old, stirred up feelings about his mother, and the grief of her death; it all creates a storm of emotion inside her and she can’t keep from bursting into tears.

Bill’s face falls. “You’re r-really that upset about this?” he says, hurt. “I know y-you liked Audra, but w-we had p-problems for a long –“

“No, no, I’m not upset,” she manages, still crying. “I’m _overjoyed_ , darling! I’m so happy, and I couldn’t think of a kinder person for you to be with.”

This, unexpectedly, sets Bill off. She pulls him to her, and she hasn’t hugged him like this in a while. He hasn’t really wanted it.

“I love you M-mom,” he says, choked. “I thought you h-hated m-me.”

“I could never hate you, darling,” she says, still crying too. “You’re my only family left.”

She doesn’t remember the last time they were so openly emotional with each other. But as she’s learned about healing, better late than never.

***

When she calms down and cleans her face a bit, she and Bill go into the kitchen.

Mike is waiting, finished with the washing up. Sharon realises that’s another reason he was probably keen to do it, to give them some space.

He looks at Bill, and Bill nods, beaming.

“Well, come and give me a hug, then!” she says, smiling just as widely.

Any anxiety in his eyes melts away, and he comes over, bending down a little to hug her. He’s so tall now, it’s strange, although it’s not surprising. His dad was tall, too.

“This calls for a celebratory drink! Of apple juice, which is all I have, unfortunately,” she says, wryly.

Bill sighs, smiling. “Sounds good, Mom.”

***

It’s not so much that they’re doing more – Bill was never overly given to, whatever it’s called, public affection, especially around his mother, even with his wife – but once she knows, it’s like she realises how much they were holding back until they could tell her. They really do love each other – it’s the way Jessica and Will used to look at each other. Maybe how she and Zack looked at each other once, but she can’t remember now. She wonders about the timelines, hopes Bill didn’t treat Audra badly, but decides that ultimately it’s not really her business.

She looks at them, happily, and Bill blushes. “Mom, you’re staring,”

Mike laughs. He has an arm around Bill, and his other is holding a glass of juice.

“I’m sorry, I’m just – happy, alright?” she apologises, unable to stop smiling. She shakes her head. “I’m so deeply thrilled you found each other again, because I couldn’t have predicted it from when I saw you two meet, but maybe I should have, you were so small, three years old and just immediately friends –“

“Wait, Mom –“ Bill says, looking puzzled. “Y-you must be confusing him with Richie, or someone. Y-you weren’t there when we met.”

“And we were thirteen,” Mike adds, looking at her curiously. “Kind of hard to forget, he and everyone else saved my life from that psycho, Bowers, and his friends.”

Her heart sinks. “Oh,” she says, unconvincingly.

Mike is looking at her oddly. Bill looks confused, and a bit concerned.

She sighs, takes off her glasses and wipes her eyes. “I was going to do this better, but I didn’t expect to hear your news and I forgot for a moment, in the excitement.”

Bill looks more concerned, sitting up straight, less relaxed. Mike keeps watching her, frozen, eyes betraying desperate curiosity.

“Mom, wh-what’s going on?” Bill asks.

She looks at him, feeling guilty – maybe not as much as she feels for Mike – for not telling him. It might have helped him to understand.

“You know best that I went to pieces when we lost your brother, and I won’t make excuses. I was a bad mother a lot of that time, when you needed me, and I will never really make up for that –“ she starts, already sniffling.

“Mom –“ he says softly, pained.

“It wasn’t good of me, and without excusing it, the story I’m going to tell you – that I should have told you a long time ago – is a part of it. Part of why I couldn’t pull myself out for so long. That town’s cruelty just _broke me_ , after your brother –“ she breaks off and looks down.

Bill’s eyes are shining, and Mike’s arm has moved from around him to hold his hand comfortingly.

She looks at Mike. “It starts a few months into 1979, when I was driving home, and I saw a young waitress, just completely soaked to the bone, walking along the road in a rainstorm.”

Mike swallows, looking stunned, and like something deep inside has shifted. “Granddad said my mom was a waitress…you knew her?”

Sharon nods, already feeling herself welling up. “Yes. And I failed her,” she says, a half-swallowed sob escaping.

“I don’t think so,” he says, almost whispering.

She shakes her head, and prepares to tell them the whole story.

***

In the study, afterwards, she shows Mike some of the pictures she dug out – the ones she packed away but couldn’t bear to throw out – and finds some from his third birthday.

Bill had to take a call, but she figures he’s also giving them space.

He’s smiling, watery-eyed. He cried before, during the story. They all cried.

But he also laughed, thrilled to have a first-person account of the parents that he can’t really remember.

“I don’t have many pictures of my parents, Sharon. My granddad wasn’t sentimental – or maybe it just…hurt too much,” Mike says, wistful. “He gave me one photo of them, after I found it. These are – I can’t thank you enough…”

She sniffles, smiling at him. “It’s the least I can do, ok?”

He looks at her. “It wasn’t your fault. Like I said before, you couldn’t have helped. You might have died yourself.”

She shakes her head. “You’re too gracious for your own good, Mike.”

He smiles, and holds out his arms. She hugs him again.

They look at the photos together.

“What’s that I’m holding, there?” he asks.

“Your wooden duck. You’d just got it as a present, and you wouldn’t put it down. We got you a Tonka truck, and you and Bill were off. Little terrors,” she says, teasing. They’d been fine, really.

He grins. “Good to know we’ve always been competitive.”

She laughs. “Really? You don’t seem to be.”

He chuckles. “You’ve never seen us play chess. It can get very ugly.”

She laughs. “Well you were a hit at this party. Your mom didn’t have a lot of kids to invite, but she invited her friends in town.”

“Did my granddad come?” he asks, quieter.

She finds a different photo. “Who do you think made the duck?”

He sniffs, looking away for a moment. “He was a hard man to live with. I get why Dad ran away to Chicago,” he starts, with bitterness. “But we never really got to talk about it. He lost a son, and I lived there long enough to understand – sort of why he felt like he had to be so harsh. Before he died – it wasn’t like, he told me he loved me and all of that –“ Mike breaks off for a moment. “But he said, I couldn’t have lost you too. He told me not to let the bastards get me down…I just wish I could have known that other side of him better. The side that hand-whittled me a toy for my birthday, because he never…” he says, eyes shining.

She puts her arm around him. “I didn’t really know him. I met him once at that party, and he struck me as a man that had been embittered by circumstances out of his control, and he didn’t stay and talk for long. But his face when you loved that toy – he loved you, in his own way. I think he was scared for you. He was right to be, I guess.”

He nods solemnly. “Thanks, Sharon.”

“Don’t thank me just yet,” she says, quietly. “The other day I was going through some old things, tidying up, as you do – just before Bill called to say you were coming with him – and I found an old box I hadn’t opened in years. At the time, I was in too much pain to even deal with mundane things, and I stuffed a bunch of mail in this box, and then I guess it got put in another box, and I forgot it was even there.”

Mike’s eyes widen, apprehensive.

She finds the old letter again, the one with his name, and hands it to him. “All I can say is, I didn’t know it was there. I promise I would have given it to you, if I had. It just – got lost in the avalanche of grief I fell into after your parents died.” Her eyes are watering again.

He takes it, speechless.

He reads it, and then skims it again, already crying softly. He looks up from it, and his face crumples.

“I’m sorry, Mike. I’m so sorry,” she says, and he pulls her into a hug. He doesn’t seem upset at her, which she can’t understand. He might have had this letter nearly forty years ago if she hadn’t been such a mess.

“Thankyou,” he says, barely above a whisper, sobbing. “Thankyou.”

Once he’s let go of her, and she’s tracked down some tissues, they’re just standing around.

Mike looks at her strangely, sort of serious and scared. Not just that; deeply, deeply empathetic. She supposes if anyone understands, in a way, it’s him. They both lost family to the black hole of their old town.

“I have to tell you something. Well, not everything, because you won’t believe me. But I think…you deserve closure too, Sharon,” he says, quietly.

There’s something so haunted in his eyes, it stops her dead. This is it; she realises. This is the war. This is the shared thing that he and Bill carry, she’s sure of it.

“The thing that took Georgie is gone now. It can’t hurt anyone else ever again,” he says. “Bill and I, and our friends –“ he looks deeply pained for a moment, and she suddenly wonders who else he’s lost. She recognises it in Bill, too, come to think of it.

He looks down, and swallows, and then looks up. “We made sure of it.”

“I don’t –“ she starts, voice starting to shake. “Wait, what thing? What do you mean _it can’t_?”

He looks worried. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have –“

She shakes her head, suddenly desperate. “No, I need you to tell me, Mike –“

He looks at her for a moment, deeply sorrowful. “You wouldn’t believe it. You’ll think I’m crazy, and I swear I’m not. Or at least, what was going on in Derry was crazier than I am.”

She takes his hand, clasps it, and looks up at him. “I don’t think you’re crazy. But you’ve started this now – I need to know, Mike. _Please_ ,” she pleads.

His resolves seemingly strengthens at this. “Alright. It’s not a pleasant story, I’m warning you.”

“It wasn’t a pleasant time,” she replies. “I’ve spent nearly thirty years wondering who took my boy, Mike, and what happened. They say knowing what happened is worse but…” she trails off, sniffs. “Believe me, the not knowing is worse. It’s every awful thing you could imagine, but without any closure.”

He nods, looking at her with great empathy. “Alright, but I think Bill should be here for this.”

Bill is upset at first, but they manage to convince him, and he sits down with her on the study’s loveseat, wrapping a protective arm around her. 

She’s nervous to hear it – what could possibly be so awful that Bill is afraid for her to hear it after all this time – and strangely desperate too.

She’d never quite forgotten Georgie, or Jessica, but they had faded in her memory, leaving only a dull ache she couldn’t quite place. Now, as she’d been thinking about them more in the last few months, the ache was waking up, getting sharper.

Bill looks at Mike, and Mike looks back, comfortingly. “I think you should tell her about the summer. I’ll fill in the gaps after that.”

Bill nods, and looks at her. “Ok, Mom, but t-tell me if it’s getting t-too much.” His stutter is worsening, and she recognises he must be very nervous.

She nods. “Will do, honey.”

He smiles sadly at her. “Alright, I guess it’s t-time to t-tell you what happened t-the summer of 1989…”

***

In the morning, Sharon wakes early.

She thought she would have nightmares about it, but she didn’t. Instead, she slept better than she had in awhile. Knowing is awful, and last night she had cried again for her lost boy, and Bill had cried with her. But not knowing was so much worse and now she just feels glad the creature is dead and they’re all out of that evil place.

She goes to the kitchen and Mike is already up. He looks a little concerned, but she smiles and tells him how well she slept, and his worry eases.

They decide to make breakfast together.

She’d okayed him staying in the same room as Bill – figuring they were well into adulthood, and she’d extended the same courtesy to Audra even before she was married to Bill – saying that men of their age should not be sleeping on an old couch like hers. 

“I can’t remember the last time you made p-pancakes, Mom,” Bill says, in wonder.

“Your boyfriend helped a great deal,” she says, smiling at Mike.

Bill cringes. “ _Mom,_ ” 

“What?” she asks, giggling. “Is that not ok to say? Should I call him your associate?”

Mike laughs. “ _Life partner_?” he teases, making Bill redden.

“Don’t you start,” he says. “ _Boyfriend_ is so teenage. But partner is _so old._ I don’t know, it’s a minefield.”

“Husband?” Sharon teases.

“ _Moo-om,”_ Bill says, warningly.

She throws her hands up. “Ok, ok, I’ll stop,” she says, laughing. “Thankyou for your help with the pancakes, Michael.”

He’s grinning. “My pleasure, Sharon.”

***

Later that day they’re looking at old photos.

“Did you know your mom found some old photos from ’79? There’s a bunch from my third birthday,” Mike says to Bill.

Bill looks at her, with great appreciation. “Thanks, Mom. I’m sure digging all this stuff up wasn’t easy for you.”

She knows he doesn’t mean physically.

She smiles, mostly alright now. “Well, I have learnt – late in life maybe, but still – that repressing your grief doesn’t really help in the end.”

Bill and Mike share a meaningful look.

“Yeah, I think I can understand that,” Bill says, rueful.

“Feels better to talk about them, remember their lives.”

“I agree,” says Mike, seriously.

She looks at Mike, apologetically. “I know I’ve already said it, and I’m glad your grandfather took you in – and maybe, given how we were after Georgie, you’re glad it didn’t happen – but when it was unsure whether he even could, I know we could’ve. Zack honestly was just trying to look after Bill, and he was afraid, but I should’ve argued against it.”

Mike takes her hand. “Sharon. I absolve you of your guilt for that. I turned out fine, and I ended up meeting Bill anyway, so.”

Bill looks at her, with a small grin. “Also, I just have to point out – probably unlikely we would have ended up together if we’d been raised as brothers from infancy. Not _really_ incest, but not really something you’d encourage. So, I for one am grateful you didn’t.”

Mike laughs. “That’s a good point,” he says, and kisses him lightly on the cheek, making Bill blush and grin. 

She beams at them, and looks down at the photo she’s pulled out.

Zack and her at home, a gap-smiled Bill holding up Georgie, a few months old, home from the hospital.

“This is a good one,” she says, passing it to Bill.

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed, let me know what you thought with comments & thanks for reading if you've gotten this far! :))


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